 Last month, my best friend Jen won $500 in the FITzee 6 week weight loss challenge! I'm so proud of her!!! She lost 14 pounds, 7 inches in her hips, and 7 inches in her waist... DURING the holidays! Before the challenge started, I sat down with Jen and we came up with a very specific PLAN to win the challenge. I can't take the credit though, Jen put it the work and just did it. On the days when she didn't want to get up for a workout, she got up anyway. At our holiday cocktail party, she stuck to her drink limit. Is there a challenge at your work that you can participate in if your goal is to get in shape or lose weight? It's great to have external motivators like that and money is a very powerful one! So what did we do? 1. SCHEDULE - I had Jen print out a blank calendar for the month and schedule in all the workouts and meals. 2. EXERCISE - We created an exercise schedule: She did 3 days of weight training, 2 days of high intensity intervals, and 1 day of a little longer cardio. We followed Brett Klika's Underground Workout plan. 3. FOOD - In terms of eating, we followed some simple rules - load up on veggies, eat good protein and good fat with every meal, no processed foods, no wheat, no dairy. 4. 90-10 RULE - We followed the 90-10 rule - eat well 90% of the time. On the calendar, we put a star for when we could have a 10% meal (one that didn't follow the above FOOD rules). For example, if you eat 4 times per day over the course of 6 weeks, that's a total of 168 meals so that means about 16-17 times you can have a meal that isn't lean, clean, and green! We put more than 1 star for Thanksgiving as well as a few stars for cocktail parties. 5. ACCOUNTABILITY - Jen and I checked in with each other every day. We frequently texted pictures of our meals as well as what we had done for our workouts that day. We also met at the gym a few times to do workouts together. It's a lot easier to run sprints on a treadmill when your friend is doing them with you! 5. MENTAL GAME - Jen was superfocused, did the workouts, prepared her meals ahead of time, and was absolutely determined to lose the weight and win the challenge. What an inspiration! Of course, everyone is going to be different when it comes to losing fat. For many people, making simple tweaks in their eating and exercise habits is all that's needed to get great results. For others who have a harder time, there are so many other factors involved like hormones, food sensitivities, toxicity, GI issues, etc... If you feel stuck because you're working out, eating right, and not seeing changes, there could be an underlying factor keeping you from losing weight. Send me an e-mail at healthcoachsd@gmail.com to schedule a strategy session with me if you need help in this area! | 
Last week my good friend and fellow health coach Ciara Lydon from this lovely 
